Table Of ContentFrench Dislocation
Interpretation, Syntax, Acquisition
OXFORD STUDIES IN THEORETICAL LINGUISTICS
general editors: David Adger, Queen Mary College London; Hagit Borer,
UniversityofSouthernCalifornia.
advisory editors: Stephen Anderson, Yale University; Daniel Büring, Uni-
versity of California, Los Angeles; Nomi Erteschik-Shir, Ben-Gurion University;
DonkaFarkas,UniversityofCalifornia,SantaCruz;AngelikaKratzer,Universityof
Massachusetts,Amherst;AndrewNevins,HarvardUniversity;ChristopherPotts,
UniversityofMassachusetts,Amherst;BarrySchein,UniversityofSouthernCalifor-
nia;PeterSvenonius,UniversityofTromsø;MoiraYip,UniversityCollegeLondon.
recent titles
10 TheSyntaxofAspect:DerivingThematicandAspectualInterpretation
editedbyNomiErteschik-ShirandTovaRapoport
11 AspectsoftheTheoryofClitics
byStephenAnderson
12 CanonicalFormsinProsodicMorphology
byLauraJ.Downing
13 AspectandReferenceTime
byOlgaBorik
14 DirectCompositionality
editedbyChrisBarkerandPaulineJacobson
15 ANaturalHistoryofInfixation
byAlanC.L.Yu
16 PhiTheory:Phi-FeaturesAcrossInterfacesandModules
editedbyDanielHarbour,DavidAdger,andSusanaBéjar
17 FrenchDislocation:Interpretation,Syntax,Acquisition
byCécileDeCat
published in association with the series
TheOxfordHandbookofLinguisticInterfaces
editedbyGillianRamchandandCharlesReiss
For a complete list of titles published and in preparation for the series, see
pp296.
French Dislocation
Interpretation, Syntax, Acquisition
CÉCILE DE CAT
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwidein
Oxford NewYork
Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi
KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi
NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
Withofficesin
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress
intheUKandincertainothercountries
PublishedintheUnitedStates
byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork
©CéciledeCat2007
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker)
Firstpublished2007
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,
orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate
reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction
outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,
OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover
andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Dataavailable
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Dataavailable
TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India
PrintedinGreatBritain
onacid-freepaperby
BiddlesLtd.www.biddles.co.uk
_________________
ISBN 978–0–19–923047–1
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Contents
ListofFigures x
ListofTables xii
Abbreviations xiv
Acknowledgements xvi
1 Introduction 1
2 Diagnosticsfordislocatedelements 4
2.1 Definingthelanguageunderinvestigation:unmarked
spokenFrench 4
2.1.1 AdvancedFrench:aquestionablenotion 7
2.2 Frenchsubjectcliticsarenotagreementmorphemes 9
2.2.1 Introductionandbackground 10
2.2.2 Testingthepredictionsofthemorphologicalanalysis 11
2.2.3 Implicationsforthesystemofagreementmorphology
inspokenFrench 11
2.2.4 Subjectcliticsareavailableforsyntacticmovement 13
2.2.5 Gettingintheway:ne,en,y,andobjectclitics 15
2.2.5.1 Neismorethananaffix 15
2.2.5.2 Objectcliticsasaffixes? 18
2.2.5.3 Enandyasaffixes? 18
2.2.5.4 Concludingremarks 19
2.2.6 SpokenFrenchdoesnotallowsubjectdoubling 19
2.2.6.1 Distributionalrestrictions 21
2.2.6.2 Thepresenceofasubjectcliticforcesthetopic
interpretationofacoindexedXP 22
2.2.7 Conclusion 26
2.2.8 Frenchsubjectclitics:grammaticaloranaphoric
‘agreement’? 26
2.2.8.1 Locality 27
2.2.8.2 Questioningoftherelatedargument 28
2.2.8.3 Topicalizationofpartsofidioms 28
2.2.8.4 Peripheralvs.corestatusoftherelated
argument 29
2.2.8.5 Conclusion 29
2.2.9 Informationstructureandsyntacticstructure 29
vi Contents
2.2.10 Themorpheme-likepropertiesofFrenchsubjectclitics
areaccidental 32
2.2.11 Conclusion 33
2.3 TheprosodiccharacteristicsofFrenchdislocation 34
2.3.1 Right-dislocationprosodyinspokenFrench 34
2.3.2 Prosodicdifferencesbetweenleft-dislocatedandheavy
subjectsinspokenFrench:areviewoftheliterature 43
2.3.2.1 TheacousticcharacteristicsofLD 47
2.3.2.2 Theacousticcharacteristicsofheavysubjects 50
2.3.2.3 Summary 50
2.3.3 DiagnosticsforLD?Apreliminaryacousticanalysis 51
2.3.3.1 ClearcasesofLDprosody 51
2.3.3.2 Comparisonwithheavysubjects 53
2.3.3.3 Interferingfactors 57
2.3.4 Summary 60
2.4 Conclusion 62
3 Interpretation 63
3.1 Topics 63
3.1.1 Generaldefinition 64
3.1.2 Theinformationstructurepartitioningofthesentence 65
3.1.3 Topicsdonothavetocorrespondtooldinformation 67
3.1.4 Therelevancecondition 70
3.1.5 Stagetopicsandaboutnesstopics 71
3.1.6 Theroleoftopics 74
3.1.7 Summary 76
3.2 TopicsinspokenFrench 77
3.2.1 Atestcasefortopichood 77
3.2.2 Indefinitetopics 81
3.2.2.1 Take1:genericindefinites 81
3.2.2.2 Take2:specificandd-linkedindefinites 86
3.2.3 Topicsinspecificationalpseudo-clefts 91
3.2.4 Topicstakewidescope 92
3.2.5 SpokenFrenchasadiscourse-configurationallanguage 94
3.3 Conclusion 96
4 Syntax 98
4.1 Abriefoverviewoftheliterature 98
4.1.1 TopicPornoTopicP? 99
4.1.1.1 Functionalheadstoderiveperipheralsyntax 99
Contents vii
4.1.1.2 Alternativestothefunctionalprojection
approach 100
4.1.2 Whatmovesinnarrowsyntax(ifanything)? 101
4.1.2.1 Thetopicmoves 102
4.1.2.2 Theresumptivemoves 103
4.1.2.3 Nothingmovesinnarrowsyntax 103
4.1.2.4 Somemove,somedon’t 105
4.2 DislocatedtopicsinspokenFrench:anoverview 108
4.2.1 Clause-peripheraltopics 108
4.2.2 Conclusion 111
4.2.3 Caveat 111
4.3 Frenchdislocationisnotgeneratedbymovement 118
4.3.1 FrenchLDdoesnotyieldWeakCrossovereffects 118
4.3.2 FrenchLDdoesnotlicenseparasiticgaps 119
4.3.3 NoRelativizedMinimalityeffects 120
4.3.4 Noreconstructioneffectsintheinterpretationof
FrenchLD 121
4.3.4.1 Avariableinaleft-dislocatedXPcannotbebound
byaclause-mateQP 121
4.3.4.2 AbsenceofPrincipleCeffects 122
4.3.4.3 Widescopewithrespecttonegation 123
4.3.4.4 Interpretationofvariables 124
4.3.5 FrenchLDisnotsensitivetoislands 124
4.3.5.1 Nativespeakers’judgements 125
4.3.5.2 Towhatextentareislandsadiagnostic
formovement? 129
4.3.5.3 Onthestatusofthe‘resumptive’pronoun 131
4.3.6 CLLDorHangingTopic? 134
4.3.7 WhichanalysisforFrenchRD? 139
4.3.7.1 FrenchRDisnotanLF/PFphenomenon 140
4.3.7.2 FrenchRDisnotLDlowerinthetree 144
4.3.7.3 FrenchRDisnotLD+IP-inversion 146
4.3.7.4 DifferencesareunexpectedifRD=LD 147
4.3.7.5 FrenchRDisnotsubjecttotheRight-Roof
constraint 148
4.3.8 Summary 149
4.4 Afirst-mergeadjunctionanalysisofFrenchdislocation 149
4.4.1 Theanalysis 149
4.4.1.1 DiscourseProjections 150
4.4.1.2 D-subarrays 153
viii Contents
4.4.1.3 Last-resortadjunction 154
4.4.1.4 Topicinterpretation 154
4.4.1.5 Ontherelationbetweenthedislocated
elementanditsresumptive 155
4.4.2 Predictionsoftheadjunctionanalysis 155
4.4.2.1 Problematicpredictionsofthetemplate
approach 155
4.4.3 FrenchembeddedDiscourseProjections 157
4.4.4 DerivingthedifferencesbetweenLDandRDfromthe
propertiesoftheperipheries 160
4.4.4.1 Prosodicpropertiesandtheirconsequences 161
4.4.4.2 Generalsalienceanditsconsequences 163
4.4.4.3 Linearorderanditsconsequences 164
4.4.5 Theoreticalconsequences 165
4.5 Reconcilingsyntaxandinformationstructure 166
4.6 Conclusion 169
5 Acquisition 171
5.1 Introduction 171
5.2 Identifyingearlydislocatedelements 172
5.2.1 Omissibility 172
5.2.2 Resumption 173
5.2.3 Wordorderandinterveningmaterial 173
5.2.4 Context 175
5.2.5 Prosody 176
5.3 Dislocationsemergeearly 179
5.4 EarlydislocationsandtheCPprojection 180
5.4.1 EightdiagnosticsfortheimplementationofCP 181
5.4.2 Discussion 194
5.5 Sentencefragments:minirootprojections 196
5.6 Primitives,learnability,andearlydiscoursecompetence 204
5.6.1 Earlydiscoursecompetence 205
5.6.2 Absenceofviolationsoftherelevantdiscourserules 205
5.6.2.1 ILPsubjects 205
5.6.2.2 Dislocatedindefinites 207
5.6.3 Positiveevidencefortherelevantpragmatic
competence 209
5.6.4 Learnabilityconsiderations 212
5.7 Conclusion 213
6 Concludingremarks 215
Contents ix
AppendixA Adultdata 217
AppendixB Childdata 243
AppendixC Judgementelicitation 267
References 278
Index 293
Description:The pervasive use of dislocations (as in Le chocolat, c'est bon) is a key characteristic of spoken French. This book offers various new and well-motivated insights, based on tests conducted by the author, on the syntactic analysis, prosody, and the interpretation of dislocation in spoken French. It
